To a Young Jazz Musician by Wynton Marsalis

Author:Wynton Marsalis [Marsalis, Wynton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-49831-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2004-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

6.

Who Keeps the Gate?

August 14, 2003

Dear Anthony,

How goes it? Man, your last letter caught me by surprise. You sounded so genuinely angry I had to read it twice. And all because of that article you sent along? Hey, I read it. Didn't stir me much, but I guess I've become used to it. Don't let criticism you read or hear of me shake you none. It doesn't bother me. Why should it bother you? In fact, the criticism makes me feel good because it's actually a sign of respect. Not respect for my music—frankly, I don't think most of these fellas have really heard my playing—but a sign of respect for who I am in the culture. Over the years the criticism has seldom attacked my actual music, just someone's notion of what I represent. Anyway, what if you never got attacked, only celebrated? Man, that would be boring. Hey, get used to a good drubbing, too, for your own part, if you want to pick up this charge of standing against the tide. Everyone has to face some sort of criticism. The question is, what will yours be?

When critics get on me, you'll hear them toss the word “gatekeeper” about, as though I stand barring entrance to the hallowed pantheon of jazz. In truth, the criticism has nothing to do with that, either. Look, with intelligent people, certain agendas have to be couched, camouflaged. And the thing the agenda gets couched in is seldom the issue. Folks rile about affirmative action. Affirmative action is not the issue. The issues stem from slavery. The issues are competition for jobs, education, compensation, and a tradition of being denied. But the term “affirmative action” assumes a life of its own. Then it means quotas. But it doesn't mean quotas. It means a proactive relationship with people who have been denied access. Few, however, will discuss the issue in those terms. They'd rather discuss quotas and the Bakke decision. Anthony, words take on lives of their own and end up having little to do with what they actually represent. Bottom line, the same people without jobs. And don't think that a black issue is not everyone's issue.

When jazz critics attack me and call me a gatekeeper, I'm always tempted to say, “Of what?” They say I'm the establishment. How can one man or one small organization be the establishment, with thousands of jobs, magazines, critical discourse, history, and tradition? All of that is jazz. Have they all given up being the establishment to let me run things? Hmmm. Maybe a certain type of bourgeois critic naturally rebels against what he perceives as middle-class or upper-middle-class structures. He's still just rebelling against himself. And what better to rebel against than the supposed establishment led by a Negro? That's a twofer, like hiring a black woman.

It's also a head fake. The establishment is who's mad. In truth, the entire notion belongs in the strange dialogue of race, jazz, and America; it belongs in the answer to who really keeps the gate.

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